


Juliet's Doll

by orphan_account



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Dolls, Gen, I'm Sorry, Tybalt is fucked in the head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 18:42:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4490526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Juliet finds a doll in Tybalt's closet that looks exactly like her, she's reasonably creeped out. Tybalt struggles to explain. Juliet really doesn't want to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Juliet's Doll

"Umm, Tybalt?”

Tybalt looked up sharply from his book, automatically rolling over on his bed to catch a glimpse of his cousin where she stood on the other side of his bedroom. Juliet had been snooping through his room again; he hadn’t bothered to chase her out this time, such behavior being typical of the girl whenever she was in the mood to tease him. Normally she pretended to be dismayed by the lack of scandalous magazines or illicit CDs to be found in the most stereotypical hiding spots she could think of searching. Tybalt, in turn, usually made himself out as too aloof to take any notice of her actions, though secretly watching her “play detective” amused him greatly. Now, he found himself wishing he’d paid closer attention; the tone of his cousin’s voice suggested that, however unlikely, she’d actually _found_ something.

She couldn’t have; Tybalt was too smart to keep anything even slightly incriminating in his room. As he turned over, his eyes fell on his cousin; she was standing near the window with his closet door open, holding something small up to the light. When his gaze landed on the artifact clutched in her hand, his stomach instantly dropped to his toes.

Juliet was holding a child’s doll; it’s small round face was made of closely knit pale thread, stringy dark hair falling down its back in a neat (clearly recently done) braid. The doll was clad in a long white dress, it’s dark eyes staring solemnly out at the world around it. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a normal doll a child might have to play with. Two things were wrong with the fact that this doll was found in Tybalt’s closet. One: Tybalt was very noticeably not a child anymore. Two: this doll happened to look exactly like Juliet.

In the face of his cousin’s inquisitive expression, Tybalt was suddenly frozen. He couldn’t move; couldn’t think; couldn’t breathe.

She had found The Doll.

“Oh my god.”

“Tybalt?”

“Oh my _god,”_ Tybalt said again.

By this point, Juliet was growing a little bit more than concerned. She let out a nervous laugh, turning the doll over in her hands; the resemblance to her really was uncanny, she had to admit. She found it… unsettling. Why on earth would this be in her cousin’s closet?

That creepy little part way in the back of her mind was already whispering things she really had no desire to think about; stubbornly, she smothered the thoughts down like smoke from a dying fire, pushing them to the back of her mind. This was _Tybalt,_ her cousin; there had to be a reasonable explanation for this.

And a reasonable explanation there was, though Tybalt was at the moment in no fair state to give it. The story behind the doll not only made sense, very little was creepy about it whatsoever; in short, the doll had at one time many years ago belonged to Juliet.

She had gotten it as a Christmas present from one of her numerous aunts; and even as a five year old, the resemblance to the doll had been uncanny. While most little girls would have been delighted, Juliet herself was displeased. She hadn’t owned the doll for more than two days before she promptly shoved it off onto her cousin with the firm order to “take good care of her”. Loyal Tybalt was only more than eager to oblige, though he was baffled at what he was supposed to do with the tiny thing; in ready acquiescence to his cousin’s wishes, however, he brought the doll home and pampered it, making it a house out of a shoebox and giving an old quilt to sleep in each night. The doll had found it’s home in his closet and for the next nearly ten years had remained there.

As the years had passed, he’d simply… never bothered to throw the box out. That was all it was. So what if he occasionally took the Juliet doll out to braid it’s hair from time to time, or convinced the Nurse to teach him to sew so that he could make new dresses for it in secret, or had lengthy conversations with it about things he knew he could never say to his real cousin in his lifetime? It was a perfectly neutral attachment to a perfectly ordinary doll which definitely didn’t have any sort of sentimental value to him whatsoever.

Now, could Tybalt say any of this to his cousin? No, of course he couldn’t; because at the moment he was still frozen in place, gaping at Juliet and the doll like a dying fish.

“Tybalt?” Juliet prompted again, gradually becoming more and more weirded out by the doll the longer she looked at it. It really did bear an uncanny resemblance to her. Not only was this doll familiar, she found the strange sense of looking in a mirror she got whenever her gaze turned on it unsettling.

“Buh… buh…” Tybalt was still struggling for words, his eyes locked on the doll in Juliet’s hands; his face was a violent shade of red that she had never seen before.

“Please tell me why you keep a doll in your closet.”

Whatever overwhelmingly powerful force that finally convinced Tybalt to speak- be it divine intervention or even the sheer strength of his self-preservation- could only just manage to force the words past the mortified Capulet’s lips. _“Your… doll… yours… not a pervert…”_ he choked out. _“Promise…”_

Juliet blinked at her cousin. Then her gaze shifted to the strange doll in her hand, and she blinked again. Eventually, after several rounds of rapid blinking between Tybalt and the unnerving little doll, she decided that whatever relationship Tybalt had with it was definitely none of her business, and she had _no_ desire to know.

_“Ohh-kay,”_ she announced, quickly passing the doll off to her cousin’s still-frozen hands; honestly, she was glad to be rid of the thing. “Good luck with your doll, Tybalt. I won’t tell father if you won’t.”

“Wait-” Tybalt’s voice was far higher pitched than it should have been. “Juliet, I can explain-”

“You don’t need to, really.” Juliet was almost running as she darted out of the room, hands in the air. “Take good care of her, cousin!”

Still in a state of incomprehensible mortification, Tybalt stared down at the tiny doll in his hand. Those familiar thread-sewn eyes gaze back at him placidly, and he heard Juliet’s final words echo in his head once more. _“Take good care of her…”_

Now, of all times, would have been the best time for Tybalt to throw the Juliet doll out for good. He knew it perfectly well; he could be rid of the doll, and the secrets it had heard over the years about things no living creature could know, feelings Tybalt could never express, once and for all.

But, he thought, carefully placing the Juliet doll back in its box and closing the lid above it, maybe that was a parting that could be saved for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> You can blame this one on my sister; rather wickedly, she gave me the prompt "Tybalt has a little doll of Juliet. He likes playing with it. Do with this what you will." So, Grace, you better be happy.
> 
> You can also blame this one on Belem Egett, from Romeo es Julia- in which Tybalt actually does have a tiny little doll of Juliet, and he actually does enjoy taking it out and talking to it and crying about his feelings to it and stroking it slightly creepily.... yeah, Tybalt has problems, let's just leave it there.
> 
> I'm supposed to be working on this piece I've been meaning to publish for days, Juliet's birthday gift. Instead, I wrote this.


End file.
